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ELD rulemaking still in OMB, could be made public soon

WASHINGTON — The Electronic Logging Devices and Hours of Service Supporting Documents Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seems destined to spend yet another week in the Office of Management and Budget where it has been housed since last Aug. 9.

Sources familiar with the situation said, however, that the rule could be made public any day now.

Why it has remained there so long is anybody’s guess, but it could have to do with the fact that federal officials scrutinized every word and every punctuation mark since this will mark the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s attempt to put in place an electronic logging device.

It’s a process that has taken so long that the vernacular has been changed from electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) to electronic logging devices (ELDs).

The original effort came in January 2007 when the agency issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would have required motor carriers that were deemed serious violators of the Hours of Service rule to install EOBRs.

The rule became final in 2010, but before it could be implemented, the FMCSA in 2012 rescinded the rule in the wake of Congressional pressure to extend the EOBR requirement to all commercial vehicles.

The agency then wrote a proposed rulemaking that required EOBRs in all commercial vehicles, but the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association sued, saying the rule did not prohibit the harassment of drivers.

The court agreed and the FMCSA was forced to work on the rule to eliminate the possibility of driver harassment and make other refinements, all of which are now supposed to be incorporated in the SNPRM.

A move by Congress put more urgency in the agency’s effort to get the rulemaking out for comment when lawmakers included an electronic logging device mandate in MAP-21.

The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at [email protected].

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